The Doomsday Clock, a symbolic device the Bulletin of Atomic Scientists uses to signify closeness to “global catastrophe” set another record closeness to midnight as of Tuesday.
“A year ago, we warned that the world was perilously close to global disaster and that any delay in reversing course increased the probability of catastrophe,” the Manhattan Project-era science and global security nonprofit said in its statement for the 2026 time. “Rather than heed this warning, Russia, China, the United States, and other major countries have instead become increasingly aggressive, adversarial, and nationalistic.”
The clock last year had been set to 89 seconds after having been set at 90 seconds for two years in a row in the years immediately prior due to the war in Ukraine and Israel’s attack on Gaza.
The Bulletin said last year started with a “glimmer of hope” regarding nuclear risks, given President Donald Trump’s suggestion that major powers engage in “denuclearization.” However, with conflicts like the ongoing Russia-Ukraine war and Israel and the United States attacking Iran’s nuclear facilities, it is unclear whether these military conflicts could drive Russia or Iran to use nuclear weapons.
“Meanwhile, competition among major powers has become a full-blown arms race, as evidenced by increasing numbers of nuclear warheads and platforms in China, and the modernization of nuclear delivery systems in the United States, Russia, and China,” the statement said. The Bulletin added U.S. plans to deploy Golden Dome, a missile defense system with space-based interceptors, is simply “increasing the probability of conflict in space and likely fueling a new space-based arms race.”
The Bulletin of Atomic Scientists was created in 1945 by University of Chicago scientists and nuclear bomb pioneers, Albert Einstein and J. Robert Oppenheimer. A video on the 2026 Doomsday Clock presentation can be viewed online.